Ousted West Boylston Selectman Demands Recount After Botched Results

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Thursday, June 07, 2012

Sandy Meindersma, GoLocalWorcester Reporter

Former West Boylston Selectman Allen Phllips, who lost his bid for re-election by more than 200 votes, is calling for a recount of all races, after the announced results overstated total number of voters.

Phillips, who has 10 days to request a recount, said that he noticed there were more than 1450 votes tallied in the Town Clerk’s race, even though there were about 900 voters.

A total of 966 voters cast ballots, and with voters selecting two candidates for School Committee, there should have been 1932 votes tallied in that race, but the announced total was 2405.

Similarly, in the Town Clerk’s race, Town Clerk Kim Hopewell announced a total of 1477 votes for herself and challenger Erin Cosgrove.

All of the town’s races were affected, except for the Selectman’s race, which was announced with the correct number of votes.

Hopewell said her error came after she copied and pasted formulas from one column to another in her results spreadsheet. As a result, some votes were doubled counted, and the totals announced following the election were too high.

“I reviewed the paperwork when I got back to the office,” Hopewell said. “When I learned it was wrong, I notified the media, the Town Administrator and Mr. Phillips.”

Hopewell said that she has five days to certify the election results, which have been posted on the town's website. 

"There is still one provisional ballot, and I am still waiting for that to be certified," Hopewell said.  

Phillips said he does not expect the outcome of the election to change, but thinks it is important to have accurate results.

“That way there will be no question down the line,” he said. “But a mistake was made and we should correct it.  That way nobody can question the integrity of the results."

John Hadley, who was elected to the Board of Selectman, said he did not think a recount was necessary.

“Human error happens,” Hadley said. “She (Hopewell) made a mistake, and then she corrected it.  I think a recount is silly, and don’t understand what good it will do.”

James Pedone, who was elected to the school committee with 494 votes, defeating John Riley, who received 433 votes, said he would not request a recount.  

"If he (Riley) did, I would respect it," Pedone said.  "If the results are different, then those are the proper results."

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• Central MA’s #20 School: West Boylston Jr. Sr. High
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